Blood and Jazz
by BIFF1
Summary: "I'm not very exciting Marty." He leans into her and whispers into her ear, the same way she had him when she had been split, "bullshit Mer you're the most interesting one here." She smiles slightly at that because he's wrong. He is by far the most interesting of them all. A 'season two' story of Marty and Merrill


**A/N: **I recently re-watched most of _Vampire High _I skipped most of the Sherry parts and mostly just watched Merrill and Marty. I thought they were starting off to a good place and I thought I'd put a little bit of a 'season two' story together. hope you enjoy. I'm purging my phone and email of my stories so I'm going a bit wild with getting everything out. Hopefully the grammars not that bad.

**Rhapsody in B minor**

"Tell me something no one else knows." Marty collapses onto the small seat next to her, there is obviously not enough room for the both of them but he doesn't seem to care and as she shifts to give him more room a memory flashes across Marty loud and vibrant and _her_.

At one point they had shared this chair without issue.

If she could she'd blush.

"Like what Marty?" with a sigh she drops her book to the low table and turns to look at him. It's obvious what he wants to know, he wants to know _her_ and if it was just in a biblical sense she thinks she'd be better equipped to handle it. But it's not just a sex thing for Marty, it's an everything thing, it's a solution to loneliness, it's the possibility of _the one._

"Entertain me." he motions her on with a hand and rests his arm along the back of the chair behind her shoulders.

"I'm not very exciting Marty."

He leans into her and whispers into her ear, the same way she had him when she had been split, "bullshit Mer you're the most interesting one here."

She smiles slightly at that because he's wrong. He is by far the most interesting of them all.

"My father taught me how to play the piano." she tells him and even she can tell that her voice softens at the memory, "he made me play Rhapsody in B minor over and over again." she tells him looking at her fingers.

"I'm more of a Rhapsody in _blue_ man myself."

She looks at him with wide eyes and can see behind his, hot nights and jazz clubs filled with smoke, the taste of blood and whiskey in his mouth and the images bring to mind an entirely different jazz club, far from the teaming never asleep streets of new york that play in the back of Marty's mind.

"He was a piano teacher, he hated jazz thought it was an abomination..." what would he have said upon sight of his baby girl, the never ending abomination against nature. Her father in his high collared suit and starched cuffs. She can remember him so clearly, which she finds odd considering the blurred images of her mother. a piano teacher is putting it lightly, he'd been a professor of music at the university...she blocked out just which one, she had no desire to ever set foot in that place again. As a rule she stayed away from all college towns.

Marty opens his mouth to say a comment of some variety but even thou at least five pass through his head he doesn't bother.

"I used to play that stupid song until my fingers bled..." she can almost see the blood stains on her pale thin fingers, "he promised if I could play it perfectly I could go to the show..." she widens her eyes and tears them away from her fingers, her hair whips Marty as she turns to look at him because jesus christ this isn't just any story, this isn't just some random knowledge to make him feel like he knows her more than anyone.

This is the story of the night she was turned.

"Merrill? are you okay?" he puts a hand on her shoulder and the weight of it is comforting.

It was such a personal thing, the night you were _made_ it was between you and your maker and no one else, but Marty had already shared the aftermath of his making, 19 dead by dawn by the river in Manchester...

"One of his students...invited me to go to a jazz show...but he said I couldn't go listen to that...that..."

Marty's mind flashes around and with a disappointed look on his face lands on the right term

_colored music_

"Yeah." she confirms, "I had to play the concerto perfectly and I did. I did, not a single mistake."

"But he still didn't let you go."

"He said I was too young to be going out at night in mixed company...with college boys..." she can feel something, down deep in her, a flicker of anger, that same burning feeling that propelled her out of her bedroom window, "So I snuck out after he'd gone to bed, out my bedroom window, broke the lattice and everything, I thought I was going to get caught right then." She can remember the cool of the air, and the blue kinda glow to everything, broken up by the orange of streetlights as she ran down towards the centre of town. To where they were hopefully waiting for her.

"I ran all the way there and the guy at the door turned me away, it wasn't the kind of place for little girls all alone. I told him I was meeting people inside but he wouldn't let me in. I was desperate for it. On the other side of that door was a whole new world, intelligent conversation, jazz music, freedom." She leaned back in the chair pulling her eyes away from Marty, "_Honey pie there you are._" she tells him in an exaggerated southern accent and Marty stiffens next to her images of Patsy La Roux in his mind.

"You don't have to..." he tells her a shake to his voice when he realises where this story is going.

"If you want me to stop..."

"no, it's just..."

"Marty?"

"Yeah?"

"It's okay, you can know." she gives him a slight smile that he returns and she recalls about how he's got good hair, strong features, winning smile, how he cleans up real good. How it's okay if she's hurting, "I want you to know." and she finds that it's true and looking into Marty she knows that this means a lot to him, and that somehow makes this worth it, "She'd read my mind obviously and she had that sweet southern hospitality thing down to an art. She took my hand and lead me into the club. It was just how I imagined it, all blue cigarette smoke and just a little bit too warm, and the music was just blasting though the tiny space, pulsating. Patsy took me over to a corner booth, told me she'd be right there if she needed me. She would have been able to tell I was nervous and scared even without reading me. I gave her a hug, thanked her and went through the club looking for...Cameron? Peter? Richard..." she narrowed her eyes searching through her memory for the boy. The tall broad shouldered pianist with a bright smile and devious brown eyes, "Richard." she confirms and Marty flashes with jealousy, "I find them, Richard and his friends from the college and his _girlfriend_." The jealousy flipped into outrage that this collegiate dirt bag would string her along and it's sweet but a good 70 years late.

"Did you go back to Patsy?"

"No, I sat down at the table next to Richard and he introduced me as that sweet kid of Professor Young's. it broke me that that's all I was. Just that he thought I'd like jazz. Every word was like a knife, every kind word and every sweet concerned touch of his girlfriends, I was a mascot, a little kid and they were condescending and I couldn't stand it. A half an hour of sweet baby Merrill I ran back into the arms of Patsy. She bought me a drink, a whiskey neat, because she knew I didn't want to be a kid any more, ironic that she was about to make me a kid forever. We closed out the club, and with the whiskey in me I just thought it was so nice of this sweet southern stranger to offer to walk me home.

We made it three blocks before she _made_ me.

The next couple of days were a haze of missing persons posters and blood, Richard, his girlfriend, a couple of girls I went to school with, half of the freshman class...gone."

"Who says you're not interesting?" he leans into her and she can feel his mouth pressed against her hairline, "I'll take you to a jazz club in New York one day, you'll love it."

He means it. He wants to take her to this very specific hole in the wall place, that's all flickering neon sign and smoke and brash brass sections, and she finds she wants to go with him. That in itself is new because this feels a lot different from the harsh sharp leash of longing she had for Drew, these feelings for Marty, are simple, she just wants to be where he is and if its a jazz club in new york all the better.


End file.
